


Waiting

by winterda



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 00:13:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/668076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterda/pseuds/winterda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the course of his entire life, Harry Potter had never been more afraid than he was at that moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Over the course of his entire life, Harry Potter had never been more afraid than he was at that moment. To an outside observer, that might seem a bit silly. After all, there was nothing particularly scary about standing in the hallway of Saint Mungo. To Harry, however, he had never been so terrified. 

Sliding down to crouch on the balls of feet., Harry clasped his hands together and dropped his chin. He tried to ignore the slight shake felt course through is body, but they had become more frequent as time pasted. 

It had been almost half an hour since the Healers had hurried him out of the room with words of ‘complications’ and ‘immediate’ and ‘lose’ on their lips. Harry hadn’t had time to understand what was happening until he after he found himself standing on the wrong side of a slamming door. 

It had taken his brain a full two minutes of staring at a wooden door for it to catch up to what was happening. 

It had taken another five for him to catch on that they weren’t just going to open it back up and tell him that it was a mistake and that he should come back in to be with Ginny. 

He had been half tempted to pound on the door and demand to be let back inside, but Harry knew that it would be pointless. The Healers were professionals and would ignore him even if there wasn’t a silencing charm cast over the room. Besides, there would be nothing for him to do but get underfoot and in the way, so he had resided himself to standing there and waiting.

Leaning his head back against the wall, he turned his gaze again upon the door marked ‘Ginny Potter’ and willed for it yet again to be opened. 

Surely they were finished by now. Surely whatever it was that had gone so wrong so quickly should have been fixed after so long. 

There were certain things, however, that he knew not even magic could mend or change, particularly when it came to the human body. It couldn’t bring someone back from the dead; it couldn’t truly give one immortality; and it couldn’t keep a child from being born two months too early when it had decided that it was ready.

He didn’t bother to look up as he heard the heavy footsteps hurrying to him. If he took his eyes off the door, then something important might happen, and he couldn’t afford to miss anything.

“Harry?” 

A pair of soft hands touched his shoulders.

“Harry, what happened?” Hermione asked. 

The voice of his friend managed to tear his attention away from Ginny’s door. Hermione was kneeling beside him. A worried frown marred her face that otherwise still had that glow about it that expectant mothers always had in the first trimester of pregnancy. You couldn’t tell otherwise that she pregnant. Some disconnected part of Harry’s mind thought it was wrong for someone who had such a radiance about them should look so worried.

Ron stepped up behind her and placed his hand on her should as if to steady her. 

“Yeah, mate,” he said. “You haven’t come and gave us an update in ages. We’re all getting a bit worried.”

“Something’s happened,” Harry heard himself say. “I don’t know what. No one will tell me anything.”

Hermione sucked in a sharp breath from between her teeth as Ron muttered “Merlin’s balls” under his. Harry rather agreed.

“Ginny…?” Hermione asked. 

Harry shook his head. 

“The baby is who they’re worried about,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean…“

A frightful thought ran through his mind then. One of those kind that didn’t last for a moment but left an impact on the brain like a hole from a bomb: Ginny, stretched out on the bed he had last seen her on, cold and lifeless. A Healer saying things to him about being too late and how there was nothing they could do, as another covered her and wrapped a tiny body in a white sheet. 

It felt as if an electrical current had gone through him. It had been so intense that it had nearly knocked him to the ground. Hermione moved quickly and adjusted her hold on his shoulders to keep him upright. Harry was vaguely aware of both her and Ron’s shouts of worry, but he couldn’t focus on them. All he could see were those white sheets.

Panic gripped at him as he almost shouted, “God, Hermione, what am I going to do? I can’t lose them. Jamie needs his Mummy. And I need…”

“I’ll be all right, Harry,” she promised him. “Saint Mungo is one of the best hospitals. They’ll be fine.”

Viciously, he snapped back, “You can’t know that!”

His tone startled him almost more than it had Hermione. He hadn’t used it in years. Not since he was fifteen. Not since Voldemort…

Moving faster than Harry had seen him move in years, Ron wedged himself between them and bit, “Don’t yell at her like that.”

Harry closed his eyes and pushed his fingers under his glasses and against his eyes. He hadn’t meant to snap at Hermione like that, but too much was happening too quickly. Ginny, the baby, complications -- he wasn’t meant to deal with something like this. Something that he couldn’t defeat or fix or even save. He was helpless -- useless -- here and there was nothing he could do to change that. 

“Ron, it’s fine,” he heard Hermione whisper loudly.

“No, it’s not,” Harry answered before Ron could. 

Dropping his hands from his eyes, he sat down heavily onto the floor and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. I just so…”

“Worried?” Hermione asked. She moved to sit beside him. He noticed that she barely brushed her arm against his as she did so like she did from time to time when they were kids. 

“Terrified, actually,” Harry replied. His eyes again traveled to Ginny’s door. “Why would they tell me anything?” 

Even Hermione, who always had an answer for everything, couldn’t tell him that. 

They sat there for awhile like that: him staring at the door and her barely touching his arm with hers. The floor was a bit cold -- it was January, after all -- but if Hermione noticed or was uncomfortable, she didn’t show it. 

After only a few minutes, Ron had excused himself to go tell the family waiting something. Whether it was going to be the truth or not, Harry wasn’t sure and didn’t particularly care save for the fact that Mrs. Weasley charging down the hall and trying to burst into Ginny’s room might be problematic. Whatever happened, she must have been kept at bay because Ron returned a bit later and took post on the other side of him. He was careful not to get in the way of Harry’s line of vision that was trained on one particular spot on Ginny’s door.

They remained there for only Merlin knew how long before there was a change. Harry could tell it first by the small displacement of air as the silencing charm was taken down. He was on his fee then, much to the apparent surprise of Ron and Hermione who were left scrambling up after him. They were still trying to stand when that infernal door finally opened.

The Healer -- not Ginny’s usual Healer, but the one that had been on call that night -- stepped out carefully and lightly on his feet like someone who was trying to keep from waking someone else. After years of working with children and newborns, Harry thought that it must have been more a habit than anything. Merlin knew he had gotten lighter on his feet since James had been born. He wondered if the new baby would be as light a sleeper as his son.

Or if it was still alive at this point.

“Mr. Potter,” the Healer said as Harry hurried forward with Ron and Hermione right behind him. He saw the Healer’s eye widen slightly at the sight of the two new people, but Harry wouldn’t let his attention be diverted for too long.

“What happened? Are they all right? Is Ginny -?”

Harry saw the Healer -- whose name he just could not remember -- open his mouth and his throat tightened before he could even finish the question. It was hard to get a read on the man. Unlike Healer Malik, who Harry knew couldn’t hide good new or bad from his face to save his own life -- this Healers stoic expression had not changed and left him only to speculate what he might say. Since there were no smiles, the speculation was focused mainly on every horrible outcome this could have.

Then, something might have passed for a smile pulled tightly on the Healer’s lips for a fraction of a second before he said, “They’re fine.”

Air filled Harry’s lungs again as he suddenly remembered how to breathe. Expect for the dull rushing sound in his ears, those two words brought the world back into focus. 

They were fine. They were going to be okay. 

Behind him, Harry could hear both Ron and Hermione cheers of relief at the news. 

The Healer went into an explanation as to what exactly had happened, but the relief had caused Harry to stop listening. There was only one thing he wanted to know at that moment.

“Can I see them?”

Again, that something that could be mistaken for a smile flashed across the Healer’s lips.

“Of course,” he said. “Keep in mind, though, that he’s going to be much smaller than your older son. The potions we gave him to accelerate the growth of his lungs have helped him be able to breathe on his own, but you still need to be very careful with him.”

“Him,” Harry repeated through a grin. “I have another son, then?”

The Healer nodded. “Yes.”

“Harry, that’s wonderful,” Hermione said as she gave him a quick hug.

Ron followed with a pat on the shoulder and said, “Congratulations.”

As they continued to congratulate him, the Healer slipped out of the way and down the hall to a nurses’ station. Harry watched him go and thought that perhaps he really should find out the fellows name. He did help save his son.

“We’ll go tell the others,” Hermione said. “Go see your wife and son.”

Smiling, Harry turned from his friends and entered into the room that he had been kicked out of so unceremoniously over an hour before.

It was dim inside with only a few lights still lit here and there; mainly, they were still lit for the convenience of the nurses left to clean up. The lack of light allowed him to see outside semi-dark window that looked out into Muggle London. Even though it was a week out-of-date, the closest billboard was still brightly illuminated and advertised a special sale that had taken place for New Years. 

Harry had barely taken two steps in when he froze in place. There was Ginny and his new son. Her entire focus was on the baby, while Harry’s was on the pair of them.  
Though her hair was sticking to her forehead and she looked as if she might drop asleep in a moments notice, Ginny was sitting up in the bed. Nestled safely in the crook of her arms was a tiny being that had been wrapped tightly in a blue blanket. She rocked him a little as she made a small humming sound.

“Hey there,” she whispered happily in a low, soft tone. “What are you looking at, huh? What do you see?”

“The most beautiful woman in the world,” Harry replied.

When her eyes meet his, the already large smile on her face stretched even further. 

Reaching her hand out to him, she said, “Harry!” 

He grabbed hold of her hand as he kissed her forehead. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Oh, brilliant,” she replied. “I can’t wait to get back up on a broom.”

“Right. I’ll let the Harpies know that you’re coming out of retirement, then,” he said with a smile.

“You do that,” Ginny said. “But first, how about you meet your new son.”

He glanced down at the baby in his wife’s arms, and for a second time that night Harry felt his heart come close to stopping. This time, though, for a good reason. 

The Healer had been right. He was a lot smaller than James had been when he had been born, but all ready Harry could see a slight resemblance of the siblings. They’d both inherited his dark hair and chin, but this one had also inherited his nose and mouth. Except for the rounder shape of his eyes, Harry hated to say he didn’t see much of his wife in their new son. There was a chance that his eyes might morph to that lovely shade of brown that they currently were like James’ had, but Harry could already see flecks of green within the blue. 

The baby blinked at him, and Harry was a little put off by how alert those blue-green eyes were. James hadn’t been that aware when he had been born. Neither had any of the other Weasley children. 

And, really, why was he staring so intently?

Ginny said, “Merlin, he looks just like you. Doesn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Harry replied. “Those could be your ears, I think.”

Ginny snorted a laugh. “Well, that’s something I suppose. Though, I think most people would understand why if we named him after you?”

“Harry Potter II?” Harry asked. “I don’t think so, Ginny. I’ve had enough trouble with that name, and he’s going to have more than his share by just being a Potter. I think we should just stick with the one we’ve already picked.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “He doesn’t look much like an Albus to me.”

Those sharp eyes continued to stare at Harry.

“Oh, I think it’s perfect for him,” Harry said. 

Reaching down, he took the baby from his wife’s arms and said, “Harry birthday, Albus Severus Potter.”

\-----------------------------


End file.
